


Shabondama

by Goombella123



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, hcs about dragon powers ahoy, i guess? shiggy is just melancholy about his childhood its fine, kana is gender neutral and also a small child, this isn't a shipfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 02:32:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7135025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goombella123/pseuds/Goombella123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azura used to sing Shigure lullabies. The lyrics were sad, but they made him happy.</p><p>He misses it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shabondama

Shigure’s mother used to sing to him as a child- an array of songs, but mostly a collection of childish melodies designed to send him to sleep. A number were in sung Hoshidan, which his tutors had taught him, though few were in written in an ancient language of which his mother did not divulge its name. Shigure was unable to memorize those, most likely since they meant nothing to him in a rather literal way. He doubted he would be able to do them justice, anyway- his mother sang that language like it was her native tongue.

  
Then, when he became a teenager, the lullabies stopped. They were replaced with a tune that Shigure was told not to sing, yet he practised and performed it daily. When the lullabies left, so did his mother’s smile, so he thought, perhaps, that by learning Azura’s song he could bring them back. Two verses of a prophecy, and a third divined by his mother herself, he learnt off by heart and committed to memory until they became like an instinct. All three verses eliciting a feeling of strange and dangerous power, the words carved into his veins; his mother’s face growing darker the better he sung it.

  
Shigure never knew of the dragon within that song. Not until it he hurt someone he loved- his first Pegasus. The song stopped her heart, and dissolved her into bubbles. He practised harder at controlling the words than he did memorizing them from then on, but the damage was already done. Azura never said a word.

  
Shigure’s caretakers used to sing lullabies in her absence, but their voices never reached into his heart the way his mother’s did. And when Shigure grew into his cords and began to test the extent of his power, the maids and cooks went silent, as if out of shame for their own voices, or fear of his. Perhaps, simply, they thought he was too old for lullabies, when the reality was that he craved them.

  
Shigure sung everyday like a requiem to bring back his naïve days of childhood. But they remained a fog in the distance, memories he could barely see.

  
\----

  
Bright little soap bubbles floated past Shigure’s head as he scrubbed. The water was turning cloudy with each dish that was cleaned, and a steady pile of plain-looking plates was beginning to stack up next to him, like a tower of porcelain beside. He scowled when the suds touched the part of his arm not covered by cleaning gloves, and he bobbed down to blow them off with an annoyed sigh.

  
There was a song his mother used to sing about soap bubbles. Without thinking, Shigure began to hum it. It hurt a little, but he was reminiscing anyways. So long as no one else heard it.

  
With that thought, Shigure noticed a slight scuffling noise from just outside the kitchen, a pattering of bare feet against board. Not small enough to be a mouse or some other kind of prey, but not big enough to be a human adult. Shigure stopped humming. He didn’t even need to identify their scent to know who it was.

  
“I know you’re hiding there, Kana.” He said.

  
A grumble from behind the kitchen door.

  
“How’d you know it was me?” Kana whined. The light wood remained closed, though, Kana’s childish voice muffled by the grain.

  
“Lucky guess.” Shigure replied, nonchalant.

  
Kana mumbled something Shigure couldn’t hear, and he frowned.

  
“…You’re not going to come in?” he called, after a moment.

  
The dragon huffed. “No.” they said. “cause then you won’t sing. I heard you singing before, ‘n I wanna listen.”

  
Shigure sighed, looked around, and then stared into the bubbles. Perhaps letting Kana hear this song wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. He muttered after them.  
“Suit yourself, then.”

  
\----

  
Shigure hadn’t sung this tune to himself since he was a child, back when he’d take his mother’s place in singing himself to sleep at night. Doing so made him feel small and lonely, and he wrinkled his nose at it.

  
Soap Bubbles. It was a song for children who perished before birth, dying before their lives had begun. It was always his favorite tune, though, despite how disheartening the lyrics were.

  
He marveled at his ability to recall the words, despite hearing them so long ago- in both Common and Hoshidan, though he chose to sing it in the latter. It was probably better if Kana didn’t fully understand the words.

  
_“Kaze, Kaze, fukuna~_

  
_Shabondama to-ba-so”_

  
Shigure finished the tune with a bittersweet smile.

  
“What does that mean?”

  
Shigure paused.

  
“…Which part?” he replied.

  
He looked down at Kana, who had joined him in the kitchen partway through the second verse, when the dragon though he wasn’t looking. They clung to his knees childishly, staring up at him in some sort of rapture.

  
Kana bit their thumb shyly. “Well, I don’t know what any of it means actually.” they began. “But I mostly wanna know about the _Kaze_ bit... Are you singing about that cool ninja guy?!” Kana gasped, strangely excited.

  
Shigure bit his lip trying not to laugh.

  
“No, no, of course not.” Shigure assured them. “The song is in Hoshidan. _Kaze_ just means wind. The cool ninja guy-“ he snorted “-is named after it.”

  
“Ohhhhh. So what does that whole bit mean, then?”

  
Shigure thought to himself for a moment, humming quietly.

  
“ If I’m remembering correctly…

  
_Wind, wind, do not blow~_

  
_Let us make soapy bubbles! “_

  
He sung, and Shigure hoped quietly that Kana wouldn’t ask for more. The dragon’s eyes grew wide, and they beamed.

  
“Ahh! I get it! You were singing about soapy bubbles because you’re doing the dishes!!”

  
Shigure was confused for a moment, the dragon’s eye’s boring little holes into him before he remembered to respond.

  
“O-oh. Yes. That’s exactly right, Kana.” He smiled.

  
Kana was only partially right, of course. The soaps and suds merely reminded him of the tune. Kana wouldn’t realise that Shigure had been feeling melancholy all day, lurking in his childhood memories with a sad nostalgia.

  
Shigure sighed. Creative slumps always had him reminiscent and mopey for months. This wasn’t anything new.

  
Kana giggled at him and stood up, letting go of Shigure’s leg.

  
“Can I sing your song with you if I’m helping?” they asked, enthusiastic.

  
Shigure considered denying them for a moment, but Kana’s eyes were impossible to say ‘no’ to. “Sure. Grab a stool, though. I don’t think you can reach the sink. Oh, and I’m cleaning off any knives you find.” He added sternly, though he was sure Kana wasn’t listening as they ran off.

  
The dragon quickly returned with a wooden stool that should have been too heavy to carry for someone their age. They were able to lift it over their heads with ease, though, no doubt due to their draconic blood. Shigure briefly wondered if he was as strong as Kana at the same age.

  
They set the stool down with a proud look on their face, dragging the oak along the kitchen tiles slightly as they clambered on top. But as Shigure went to hand them a scrubbing brush, their look of excitement turned into a pout inexplicably. He frowned.

  
“Whats wrong?” Shigure asked evenly.

  
Kana crossed their arms and looked down at Shigure’s sink. The suds were beginning to pop, and he mentally reminded himself to add more soap if needed.

  
The dragon grumbled.

  
“I can’t sing along if I don’t know the words! You gotta teach me first, Shiggy!” they huffed.

  
Shigure stared at them, annoyed. “Don’t call me that. And couldn’t you just try to following along? There’s only two verses. You’d pick it up rather quick.”

  
“No, I wouldn’t!” Kana frowned. “Not when I have to keep asking you what things mean!”

  
Shigure’s shoulders tensed. “There’s not much I can do about that, Kana.” He said.

  
Kana stamped their feet childishly.“Nooo! Can’t you just make it so I understand like you did before?!”

  
Shigure cringed.

  
“I’d… rather not. They’re not very nice lyrics. I don’t like singing it in common.”

  
Kana crossed their arms. “Well it SOUNDED nice. How can it not be nice in my language too?” they muttered.

  
Shigure sighed, and tried to return to drying his dishes. The water was almost a dark grey, and he hated the colour. Kana was forced to relent- his childish tactics were being ignored- and he began to copy Shigure in his work, scrubbing the dishes in a circular motion as he thought.

 

“….Hey, Shiggy?” Kana said quietly, after a while.

  
Shigure ignored the nickname. “Yes?”

  
“What did you say the song was called again? I forgot it already.”

  
The Pegasus knight sighed, and pulled his side-bang out of his face with a wet hand.

  
“Shabondama. Meaning Soap Bubbles.” He said curtly, and Kana smiled a little when they noticed a bubble had caught in Shigure’s hair. It promptly burst into nothing as soon as it had appeared.

  
Shigure went back to work quietly. He was nearly done with all of the dishes, and as he finished drying the second-to-last plate, he reached out to stack it onto one of his piles of shining white porcelain just to the right of the sink.

  
He heard Kana sing something under their breath, and his arm stopped, frozen.

  
“….Kana.”

  
“Please, Shigure? I won’t sing it to anyone ever. I just wanna hear you do it, only once. So I can remember.”

  
The dragon’s eyes were wide with the same rapture as before, but they pleaded with him this time. Somewhere, Shigure was humbled by it, and so he relented with a heavy sigh.

  
He closed his mind off to the melancholy thoughts, and breathed deep.

  
“…Ok, Kana. But promise me you’ll always remember it, and remember it well. Because I won’t sing it in common for anyone else.”

  
The dragon did a little shriek, yet they nodded solemnly.

  
“You start me off.”

  
Kana’s smile was worth it. They giggled excitedly, opening their mouth to release a long, loud note. Shigure jumped, nearly dropping the plate he was holding, and he hushed them quiet.

  
“It’s a requiem Kana, not a war cry!” Shigure whispered harshly.

  
Kana giggled. “Sorry, Shiggy. I’ll try again.”

  
Shigure groaned at the nickname, and finally set down the plate. To his surprise, though, he watched as Kana straightened their back, posturing themselves as a professional singer would. They took a few deep breathes into their stomach, stretching their diaphragm, before they released their note as pure and as gentle as Shigure’s mother used to.

  
_“Soapy bubbles~”_

  
Shigure inhaled deeply, his chest beginning to swell up already. He knew that Kana was expecting him to continue, and so that is what he did. With a short breath, he sung the rest of the words.

  
_“Soapy bubbles flew away,_

  
_to the roof they flew away~_

  
_Flying, flying, up so high…”_

  
Despite what he associated it with, Shigure smiled at the tune. It was simple and childlike, and he remembered how songs like this used to bring him such happiness.

  
_“…then they burst and disappear.”_

  
Shigure forced himself not to speak the last line, his voice cracking slightly on the last syllable. He stared down at the sink’s dark waters, avoiding Kana’s disappointed face.

  
“…Shigure?” The dragon’s childish voice sounding so concerned, and Shigure sniffed, his back slumping. The suds in the sink were almost gone completely, with only a small cluster remaining, clinging to the edge of life. He ended their misery by pulling the plug, the water spiralling down the drain with a tiny slurp.

  
“I’m fine.” Shigure whispered, though Kana was unconvinced. Shigure took a deep breath and continued anyway, for them. There were sobs beginning to threaten his throat as the sink gurgled and cleared.

  
_“Soapy bubbles disappeared_

  
_Without flying, they disappeared_

  
_Before they were even born,_

  
_They had burst and disappeared.”_

  
As he sang that, the final bubble in the sink went out with a _pop!_ as the water retreated.

  
Shigure stared at it, wide-eyed and shaking. Just like that, as the water left, the last bubble died in an instant.

  
Suddently, it was too much, and Shigure let out a loud sob.

  
\---

 

Kana didn’t know what to do. Shigure was singing so nicely, then all of a sudden he was bawling, and they didn’t know how to make it stop. They watched hopelessly as the teenager slid to the ground, his head sinking into in his knees as his body wracked with sobs. Asking him what was wrong only made him cry harder, and Kana felt like bursting into tears themselves.

  
They could only do what their child instincts told them to, and ran away.

  
\---

 

“…Shigure? Kana says you were ups- oh. Oh dear.”

  
Shigure’s head shot up like lightning. He looked a mess- his eyes bloodshot and weepy, his nose running like an ugly schoolchild. And Azura thought that Kana had been distraught, running to her weeping that ‘Shigure is crying and I can’t make him stop!’.

  
Azura tentatively pushed opened the kitchen door and stepped through, watching her son’s eyes grow wide and panicked as she approached.

  
“D-don’t come any closer, mother!” He called, his voice hoarse and painful. Azura frowned deeply.

  
“Shigure, Kana is in hysterics over you.” she murmured, and she stepped closer regardless. “You need to tell me what’s upset you.”

  
“No- mother, stop, you’ll slip-“ Shigure yelled, though Azura had already put her foot forward.

  
Into… a pool of water that surrounded Shigure, and flooded the entire barracks kitchen. Her son a sad, lonely island in a tiled sea. Azura sighed.

  
“…Are these your tears?” she asked, no emotion to her voice as she looked down at her bare, wet feet.

  
Shigure mumbled a reply “No. Probably.” He said, sniffling. His voice cracked as he admitted-“Things like this just happen, sometimes.”

  
Shigure pulled his legs closer to his chest, away from the rippling pool.

  
His mother waded quietly through the shallow waters. “It happens when you’re very upset, and you’ve been bottling it up for too long. Correct?” She whispered.

  
Shigure whispered back. “Correct.” He buried his head in his arms again. Azura supposed he might cry, but the flooding probably indicated that he was out of tears.  
Finally crossing the waters to her son, Azura reached behind him to take a cup from the sink, and she turned on the tap. Shigure felt her grip lightly on his shoulder as she leant down.

  
“Drink.” She said. “You need it.”

  
He looked up and contemplated in the silence, before taking the glass from her hand.

  
“And I suppose that you know this because you’re ‘just like me’, Mother?” He said with a bitter frown.

  
“…Shigure.”

  
Azura crouched down, going eye level with her son. He refused to make contact, and it stung her.

  
His voice was calm and even as he spoke. As if he was mocking Azura’s usual tone.

  
“Why did you never tell me about myself, Mother? You’ve always just said I was ‘different’. You never comforted me otherwise.”

  
Azura held his shoulder tighter. “I didn’t… think you needed comforting. You seemed to accept your differences the way I did.”

  
Shigure’s calm façade cracked a little.“I accepted myself, yes. But I didn’t know what I was capable of.” He explained. “You gave me your song, and yet you never told me what it does. I kept trying to get better at it to please you, and I ended up…” Shigure choked up at the memory. “…ended up _killing_ someone, and you never once told me that it wasn’t my fault! When things like this happen, you just accept it like it’s normal. I hate it!” He sniffled.

  
Azura let out a small, sad sigh. “You’re right, Shigure. You’re not normal.” She admitted her voice firm. “You never were, and I foolishly hoped that by avoiding the fact, you could pretend, and you could be happy.”

  
Shigure unfurled his arms and legs, and looked at her furiously “I’m not happy!” Shigure croaked “I was never happy, and especially not in those _stupid_   _Outrealms_ without you! Maybe if you were there, maybe if you’d told me I could do things like this-“ Shigure motioned angrily to the ocean surrounding him. It vibrated like a threat. “-maybe then, I wouldn’t have killed my only friend! Maybe… I would have been able to save my home. I wouldn’t have been so powerless to stop whoever those monsters were!”

  
Azura felt her hand begin to shake, though she kept her grip firm. “I’m… so sorry, my son. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I should have realized I was… hurting you, all this time.”

  
Azura removed her hand from Shigure’s shoulder to stand, and he looked up.  

“You stopped caring about me.”

Azura choked. “Never. I never stopped caring about you, Shigure, and I never meant to make you feel that way.”

  
Shigure’s eyes hurt.

  
“You stopped singing for me, mother. You stopped singing me lullabies”

  
Azura tried to regulate her breathing again, voice shaking as she spoke as smoothly as she could, with some success.

  
“I’m sorry, son. I’m so, so, sorry, and I love you. I don’t want you to ever feel like I don’t.”

  
But her words felt pale to him, no matter how genuinely she meant them. Azura was struggling to get across. Like always.

  
At a loss, she sniffled, and sat back down, curling herself into the same fetal-like position as her son. Her dress was a little wet at the edging, but she ignored it.

  
Azura never thought herself a good parent. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do when Shigure was sad, or needed her help. Her parents never showed her how to care about others. They never showed her how to care about herself.

  
She always admitted that struggled emotionally, and she always feared that her child would suffer the same way she did. She hated herself for not being better. She hated that she’d passed her troubles onto him.

  
She was good at keeping her voice even, though. Azura knew how not to cry. She stared at her wet feet, silent. Those tears she wouldn’t shed were restless behind her eyes.

  
“All the lullabies I sang for you were so sad.” She whispered, and Shigure finally looked at her without a trace of resentment.

  
“I still loved them.” He said quietly. “I still love you, mother.”

  
Azura stared at him. Her son had become such a melancholy person, hadn’t he? So many bittersweet memories and feelings he didn’t know how to express. She loved him too. She didn't know how to express it, either.

  
A tune floated through head.

  
_“Namida ga afureta.”_

  
Azura murmured it, and Shigure’s gaze drifted in thought.

  
“….the tears… overflowed.” He translated.

  
Azura gave a tiny smile. “Good. Do you remember that one?”

  
Shigure sighed “Indeed I do, mother. Its... oddly appropriate right now. You sang it whenever I cried, because it was the only thing you could think of to help.”

  
Azura returned his bittersweet smile “I haven’t changed a bit.”

 

  
She sang to him in barely a whisper.

 

 _“namida ga afureta_   (the tears overflowed)

  
_namida ga afureta_   (the tears overflowed)

  
_kimi no koto, suki to iezu ni_  (and I never got to say that I loved you),

 

_gomen.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I've always headcanoned that Shigure and Azura have a wider repertoire than just Lost in Thoughts, and Shabondama being about bubbles and all really felt like a song Shigure would have heard as a kid. Add on top of that my personal thoughts about how much Azura really was in Shigure's life and how he would have felt about/dealt with that, and then. this happens.
> 
> The last song is actually from Pikmin. It just happened to fit very well. The translations are from memory and adjusted to fit the melody, so they're defs not accurate.
> 
> This ended up being really long so I hope it's ok.
> 
> shabondama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKz0DfJ0TJM
> 
> namida ga afureta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T-QHAkDf-8


End file.
